


Captain Oblivious

by straightmale420



Category: Free!
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Rin being not at all smooth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24308182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightmale420/pseuds/straightmale420
Summary: A shark's brain to body mass ratio is larger than most other fish, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're smart.Or alternatively: Rin has a crush and is too stupid to realize it's mutual.
Relationships: Matsuoka Rin/Nitori Aiichirou
Comments: 7
Kudos: 156





	Captain Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

> its 2020 and im writing Free! fanfiction because i love cringe
> 
> big shout out to my buddy jen who put up with me literally spoonfeeding her this fic as i went along, i love u bro

Like most things, it started small. He wasn’t sure of the  _ when  _ or the  _ how _ , but those things didn’t matter. What mattered was that it started, it grew, and now it was getting too big to ignore. Too big to brush off, too big to hide. There really was no way around it, every time he reached out to tussle Ai’s hair, his brain got really loud and annoying. He had a crush and he had it  _ bad. _

Rin sat by his desk, face firmly planted in his palm. He had gotten dangerously close today. Ai had been shivering, and he didn’t think. He just shrugged his jacket off and nonchalantly slung it over Ai’s shoulders. Nothing wrong with that. That was just him being nice. The problem was how Rin lingered, tugging the collar into place when he strictly didn’t need to, and the weird pause when he stared at Ai’s face a little too long. Ai didn’t have to look at him like that, all wide-eyed and surprised. He  _ really  _ could have done without the pink spreading in his cheeks too. Rin’s brain snapped back online when he felt himself hovering a little bit too close, and he jerked back, excused himself and rushed back to his dorm in a way that was totally normal and not conspicuous at all.

He had thought about sharing his predicament with Sousuke, just to get it off his chest, but he knew his roommate well enough to know that he would never let Rin live it down. For the sake of his own sanity (and Sousuke’s safety) he’d decided to keep his mouth shut.

Asking Gou for advice was as close to a good idea as he was gonna get, but there was no way in hell he was willing to talk about this stuff with his  _ sister. _

Having a heart to heart with Haru or Nagisa was out of the question, and Rei didn’t exactly strike him as a love expert.

Makoto was… Probably the safest option.

Rin slowly peeled his palm away from his face and reached for his phone. He tentatively tapped his way to Makoto’s info and glanced over to the bunk beds to make sure Sousuke wasn’t snooping. Not that he’d be able to snoop from all the way over there, but whatever.

He turned his attention back to his phone and glared at the blank message box. How the hell is he supposed to phrase this?

  
  


_ To: Makoto _

_ Makoto, I need help- _

No, absolutely not.

_ To: Makoto _

_ Dude I’m losing my mind- _

No, no and no.

_ To: Makoto _

_ Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. _

Rin dropped his phone. This was going nowhere. He was about to bury his face in his hands again, but a gentle knock on the door diverted his attention before he could succumb to crush-related despair.

“I’m not answering,” Sousuke grunted from his top bunk.

Rin sauntered over to the door, turned the handle and was met with nervous blue eyes and a tuft of grey hair. Huh. Speak of the devil.

“Ai?” He propped his forearm up against the doorframe and waited. It was almost like it was scripted, the way Ai initiated a conversation. Rin knew it by heart at this point. 

First, he averted his eyes. Then a stutter and some fidgeting before he finally lifted his gaze from the floor and made eye contact. It used to make Rin impatient and irritated. It used to make him want to lash out and tell him to just spit it out and get to the point, but now it was something Rin intently paid attention to. He watched as Ai’s fingers meekly curled around the hem of his sleeve, he noticed the little breath he took before looking up and leveling his eyes with Rin’s, and he constantly found that his own focus had a tendency to drift towards Ai’s beauty mark. That same focus also happened to waver and flick down to Ai’s mouth.

“Um. Thanks for letting me borrow this,” Ai said with a light smile, handing over the jacket rin had lent him a couple of hours ago.

“I should have given it back sooner, but I kind of forgot I was wearing it,” he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. 

“Don’t worry about it.”

There was a lull in the conversation where Ai just kind of watched him wiggle back into his jacket, expression blank in a way that Rin couldn’t quite put his finger on. When he opened his mouth to ask if he needed anything else, it was like a flip switched and Ai snapped out of his wistful daze.

“Ah! I should get back to Momo-kun, I promised to help him study!” Ai punctuated with a short bow, and before Rin could wish him good luck on  _ that  _ particular venture, (‘Momo’ and ‘studying’ were two mutually exclusive concepts) he was already halfway down the hall.

Why exactly Rin decided to lean out of the door to watch him go was a question he couldn’t answer– or wouldn’t, rather– but he did, and he caught Ai looking back over his shoulder as he slipped through the door to his own dorm, ears pink and lower lip thoughtfully between his teeth.

What the fuck.

*******

Rin had just kicked back with a magazine when the handle on the dorm room rattled. At first he thought it was Sousuke, but he shouldn’t be back from his run this early.

“Did you forget some–” Rin started, but stopped halfway through his sentence as he watched Ai fumble his way through the doorway in a blind panic and all but scramble into the room.

“Pardon me for the intrusion!” Ai yelled frantically. He was pale and looked winded, blue eyes wide and chest heaving. The boy looked like he had just witnessed a murder, or had just committed one and was now fleeing the scene of the crime. Rin dropped his magazine and sprung up, completely forgetting the structure of the bed he was sitting in. 

“Ai, what’s going–” He slammed his head against the top bunk. Ai yelled something again, but Rin didn’t quite catch it through the sound of his own teeth rattling. Cursing loudly, he staggered out of the bottom bunk. Somewhere from the hallway, the muffled sound of Momo’s hearty “Nitori-senpai!” echoed, and the panic in Ai’s eyes turned into full blown despair when Momo’s red mop of hair poked through the door.

Rin had no idea what was happening. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know, and when Momo happily skipped over the threshold, Rin really wished he didn’t know.

“Please, Momo-kun, keep that thing away from me!” Ai pleaded.

In Momotarou Mikoshiba’s hands, caked in mud, was a bullfrog. Not just any bullfrog. The fattest bullfrog Rin had ever seen in his entire life dangled between Momo’s fingers like a perfectly kneaded dough.

“But _ look _ at him, Nitori-senpai! Look at this absolute unit! Maximum chunkiness! He’s perfect!” Momo raised the massive frog in the air and wiggled it for emphasis. Ai answered with an unenthusiastic whine, and scuttled behind Rin’s back. On any other day, at any other time, having Ai use him as a human shield would have made his heart swell, but this whole situation had him efficiently nonplussed. That, and he may or may not have a concussion. 

“Why… Do you have that.” Rin asked flatly. Again, he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.

“Well duh, I caught him and now I have him,” Momo was still waving the floppy animal around excitedly. The bullfrog, on the other hand, had evidently had enough of Momo’s rough treatment, because it somehow managed to wriggle itself out of his grip and landed on the floor with a resounding slap. Ai’s fingers latched onto the fabric of Rin’s shirt somewhere between his shoulder blades. Rin took a step forward.

“This thing is going out,” he reached down towards the uninvited guest, which had an astonishingly nasty glare for an amphibian. Momo and Ai erupted into an unorganized choir of ‘ _ Rin-senpai don’t– _ ’ but it was too late. The frog opened its gob and launched for Rin’s index finger.

What happened next was a series of events in rapid succession. Ai screamed. Momo screamed. Rin screamed. Everyone in the room but the frog screamed. 

Rin fell backwards, still screaming while he desperately tried to shake the frog off.

“IT’S GOT FUCKING TEETH?” Rin shrieked, red droplets starting to show where the frog had clamped down. Momo, in one hysterical heroic motion managed to pry the frog off of him, and Rin cradled his own hand like a child against his chest.

“Put that thing back where you found it before I _ kill it _ ,” Rin sneered, and Momo fled the room with a flurry of ‘I’m sorry’s’ and a quiet but unmistakable ‘I’ll vouch for you in court’ directed at the green monster in his hands.

Something behind him shifted, and he realized that Ai was still latched on to his shirt.

“Are you okay?” Ai asked, peeking over his shoulder at the red mess on Rin’s fingers. “That looks bad, you should disinfect it.”

With an affirmative grunt, Rin got to his feet and shuffled to the bathroom, Ai following closely at his heels. He lingered in the doorway while Rin rummaged around for band-aids and disinfectant. By the time he’d managed to scrape together a makeshift first aid kit from the general garbage that accumulated in a bathroom shared by two teenage boys, Ai was leaning against the sink.

Rin tried and failed to open the bottle of disinfectant one-handed, and watched as it slipped out of his hand and bounced off the edge of the sink. Ai reflexively reached for it, and he almost caught it, then proceeded to get stuck in a couple seconds of cartoonish fumbling while he tried to get a proper grip, all while Rin made a half hearted attempt to hide his laughter.

With the bottle secured in one hand, Ai looked at the small pile of cotton balls that Rin had haphazardly thrown into the soap dish. Then he looked at Rin’s mauled finger, and back down at the disinfectant.

“Can I…?” He started quietly. “I mean, it’s kind of my fault that thing bit you.”

Rin sputtered. “No it isn’t?”

“I just… I’d like to help,” Ai said, fiddling with the bottle cap. Rin was about to protest again, but before he could sabotage himself he realized what was happening here. What a golden opportunity this was. It was stupid and sappy and  _ embarrassing  _ and Rin had never wanted anything more. Right now, there was nothing in this world Rin wanted more than to have Ai patch up his pathetic frog bitten finger for him.

“Go ahead,” he reached his hand out with a shrug. Composure and generally keeping a straight face definitely wasn’t on the list of Rin’s strong points, but god damn it, he was going to try and be as outwardly chill about this as possible. Ai gently took Rin’s hand in his, and with every careful dab of the cotton ball against his skin, the plan to stay calm and casual started fraying more and more. Even biting his lip to physically fight it didn’t deter the smile spreading across his face.

Ai’s hand was warm, slender fingers delicately curled around his as he wrapped the band aid around Rin’s fingertip. Slow, precise and a light rub with his thumb for good measure. Rin was well aware that he was a sap, but this– this was honestly ridiculous. That someone doing something as simple as putting a sticky strip of fabric on his finger could make his heart flutter like this was almost _ laughable. _

The job was done, but Rin didn’t pull his hand away. Ai still lingered too, and his thumb trembled against Rin’s palm. They stayed like that for a beat, two, three. The atmosphere was teetering on the edge of awkward, and Ai opened his mouth, stuttered, and closed it again. His eyes were fixed on their hands, Rin’s hand gently grasped in both of Ai’s.

It would have been easy, Rin thought. To just lean in and kiss him. If he just took one step forward, he could.

Could have, would have, but didn’t. Because the second he managed to swallow down the heart in his throat and tilt his head, the sound of the door to the dorm opening made Ai jolt and pull his hands away. Thankfully, he peeked through the open bathroom door and couldn’t see the way Rin visibly deflated.

“Hi, Yamazaki-senpai,” Ai chirped, though the cheery tone sounded weirdly forced.

“Oh, hi,” Sousuke muttered, a confused lilt in his voice from being greeted by someone who wasn’t his roomate. “Where’s–”

Rin poked his head out above Ai. Something in Sousuke’s face changed, confusion fading and turning to pondering, then it flickered and landed on something smug and knowing, and all Rin had to defend himself with was a glare.

Thankfully, Sousuke didn’t share his little revelation. Instead he smiled, subtle and shit-eating, knowing he would have ample time to take the absolute piss out of Rin for this later.

“Hey uh,” he cleared his throat. “Do you guys know why Momo is in the hallway explaining jury duty to a frog?”

*******

“So,” Sousuke braced himself against the top bunk, peering down at Rin. He had that knowing look on his face, the one where he was sure he’d uprooted whatever embarrassing secret Rin was keeping from him. “You and Nitori, huh?”

Rin didn’t take his eyes off of his phone screen. “What about us?” 

Sousuke pinned him with a  _ look.  _ “You’re not exactly subtle, you know?”

Rin pressed his phone to the tip of his nose in an attempt to shield himself from Sousuke’s piercing gaze. It didn’t work.

“Subtle how? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His screen was just a bright blur in front of him, and it offered very little protection from Sousuke, who loomed over him like a judge ready to convict him for his crimes.

“You're the worst liar I know, Rin.”

“I’m not lying!” Rin snapped, shoulders creeping up to his ears. Predictably, the crease in Sousuke’s brow told him that he was buying exactly none of it. To hell with this traitorous body and its laughably obvious outward language.

“I’m pretty sure you guys were making out in the bathroom yesterday,” Sousuke said, blunt and to the point and completely ruthless like always. 

“Making ou–“ Rin nearly choked on his own tongue. “No! What the hell, we were just hanging out!”

“...In the bathroom?” Sousuke cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he just–” he cut himself off. Telling Sousuke about the band aid incident would be tantamount to digging his own grave. He could stand there and stare all he wanted, Rin wasn’t saying another word.

“He just  _ what _ , Rin.”

For fuck’s sake, did no one ever teach Sousuke to pull his punches?

Rin chucked his phone in the general direction of Sousuke’s face, missed it by a mile and sent his poor phone flying halfway across the room. It landed and clattered sadly on the floor somewhere. He groaned and turned on his side, promptly showing Sousuke his back.

“Piss off, Sousuke.”

“I’m serious though,” Sousuke laughed. “Your pining is palpable.”

“I wouldn’t be pining anymore if  _ someone _ hadn’t walked in yesterday,” Rin mumbled into the crook of his elbow.

“You– wait. Did I actually cockblock you?” The bed creaked as Sousuke leaned further into his space. Rin remained quiet.

“Oh. Damn.” 

Yeah. Damn. Rin retorted with an offended sniffle instead of replying with actual, human words. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was being dramatic, but when your roommate spoiled the penultimate moment of a confession that would have put every soap opera to shame, a little frustration was justified.

“When you’re done moping you should ask him out for real,” Sousuke nudged Rin’s ass with his foot, which warranted him a guttural growl. “And don’t growl at him like that when you do,” He added.

Sousuke dropped the matter after that, accepting Rin’s apparent abandonment of the human language and retreated to his own bunk. Rin, thankful to finally be left alone to peacefully wallow in self-pity, spent the next half hour face-down in his pillow.   
**  
** *******

At first he thought he’d made a mistake. The way Ai avoided eye contact the next morning and gave a flustered, too-fast greeting before running off to his classes was… Uncharacteristically nervous. Ai later sidled up to him during lunch and told him there was ‘something he wanted to talk about after practice’. The expression on his face was weirdly tense while he talked, as if he was relaying some information that he really rather wouldn’t, which made Rin’s worries do a hard turn towards ‘you’ve fucked up’ territory.

Had he read Ai wrong? Maybe the weird atmosphere in the bathroom the other day was just that– weird. And he’d read it wrong, leaned in for a kiss like an idiot while Ai was trying to figure out how to tell him to let go of his hand.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

“He’s gonna reject me,” Rin muttered as he and Sousuke made their way to the locker room. Sousuke, who had witnessed Rin’s slow and steady strides towards a meltdown all day, just grunted.

“You don’t know that.”

“The phrase ‘we need to talk’ is never followed up by something good, Sousuke!” Rin ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “He’s gonna tell me to back off. He probably thinks I’m a creep!”

“Don’t put words in his mouth for him,” Sousuke scowled at him as he opened the door, and that was the end of it.

He spent most of practice trying to shrug off any stupid thoughts his brain tried to fling at him. It worked for the most part– while he was gliding through the water, it almost felt like it was taking his worries with it. Sousuke was right. Deciding the outcome of a conversation before it even happened was pointless, and working himself into a lather over  _ maybe _ and  _ what if _ wouldn’t do him any good.

Chances were that Ai wanted to talk about something completely different. He was observant, he could be worried about a team member. He was also way easier for underclassmen to approach, first years who were too intimidated to talk to Rin directly would often turn to Ai, who would gladly help them in any way he could, or forward their inquiries for them.

That Ai was made of captain material was clear to everyone but Ai himself, apparently.

Rin pulled himself out of the pool just in time to see Momo hook a dripping wet arm around Ai’s shoulder while gesturing wildly with the other, narrowly avoiding smacking an unsuspecting teammate in the face. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by the stopwatch in Ai’s hand and the proud grin on both his and Momo’s face, Momo probably had a new best. Evidently, the Mikoshiba siblings were all a bunch of air headed beasts.

The stopwatch traded hands, and Ai positioned himself on the starting block. Seemed he had made a dent in his habit of leaning too far forward before diving in, his form was close to perfect the second before he broke water. 

“Looks like you’re a competent teacher,” Rin said when Ai finished his lap and Momo started hooting and hollering with the watch held high. Sousuke cast a casual glance towards the commotion at the edge of the pool and grunted, but Rin didn’t miss the glint of fond pride in his eyes. 

“He could win a war with that determination of his,” Sousuke mumbled eventually, watching as Ai jumped back into the water. He sounded almost wistful, his stone-like features slowly crumbling and giving way to something like admiration. Rin could relate, Ai’s charm levels really were off the charts.

“I thought I was the one with a crush,” Rin playfully kicked at Sousuke’s leg. Sousuke just gave him a blank look, the joke swerving over his head and landing somewhere at the deep end of the pool. 

“What?”

“Nevermind. Take my time,” Rin snapped his goggles back on. He forgot how dense Sousuke could be sometimes.

***

“But Nitori-senpai! You said you’d–”

“And I will!” Ai promptly cut momo off for the third time. “ _ After _ I talk to Rin-senpai.”

“But Pyunsuke–” Momo struggled against the frame as Ai tried to push him through the door. The rest of the team had left the locker room a good fifteen minutes ago, but for some reason the fact that Ai had something more important to do than helping Momo with a beetle photoshoot was  _ preposterous _ – at least to Momo’s ears. He’d let both Rin and Ai know this through a long, rambling speech, until Ai started to physically force him out of the room.

“What do you guys have to talk about that's so important, anyway?” Momo briefly stopped resisting to put on a very impressive pout.

“Top secret business!” Ai replied, before he mercilessly took advantage of Momo’s lack of defiance and shoved him through the door. Rin watched him turn the lock almost the same exact second Momo started rattling the door handle, and for a moment he looked less like a high schooler and more like a very, very tired parent. Momo started hammering on the door, and Ai let out a heavy sigh as he leaned against it.

The corners of Rin’s mouth twitched involuntarily.

“Are you laughing?” Ai’s accusatory glare– if it could even be called that– didn't help Rin keep his composure at all.

“No,” he lied, struggling to keep the laughter in his throat. Ai let go of another long-suffering sigh, but a small grin belied his exasperation. 

“Sorry to keep you like this, I just really needed to talk to you– like, alone.” Ai’s smile faltered a little as his voice took a more serious tone. A nervous crease started forming on his forehead, and Rin suddenly wished Momo was still here.

“...What’s eating you?” Rin asked reluctantly. If this was going in the direction he thought it was, at least Ai seemed like the type to let people down gently.

“It's– it’s kind of silly, honestly,” Ai had started wringing his hands together, and his gaze was floating around somewhere on the floor. “It’s not that important, really, but I wanted to know if you, uh. If you–”

He cut himself off and shook his head. “I’m rambling, I’m sorry,” he inhaled sharply, then pushed off from the door.

“Did you… Try to kiss me in the bathroom the other day?” Ai still didn’t look at him. Rin’s stomach turned, his insides wriggling and writhing into one massive knot, and he let out a quiet, nervous laugh.

“I… yeah,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’m sorry about that, I should have asked. Or read the room. Or just– I don't know. I’ll back off.”

Rin had never witnessed a human being get struck by lightning before, but if he had to guess, he imagined they’d behave a lot like Ai, with the way he shot up, ramrod straight and eyes wide. 

“Wait– wait, wait wait,” he sputtered, hands flailing wildly.

“I’m not– I’m not mad!” Whatever nervousness Ai had a minute ago evaporated immediately, flustered bewilderment taking over in its stead. “I don’t want you to back off!”

“What.” Rin said, dumbstruck. 

“I don’t want you to back off,” Ai repeated, slower this time, and shifted a little closer. He grasped gently at Rin’s hands, which dangled stupidly at his sides while his brain tried to process the situation.

“I panicked when I heard Sousuke-senpai come in,” Ai lightly squeezed his hands and gave him an apologetic smile. Despite the bluescreen currently going on is Rin’s head, he somehow still managed to squeeze back.

“Rin, can I kiss you..?”

He didn’t trust his mouth to say anything coherent at the moment, opting to just give Ai a somewhat dazed nod in lieu of actual words. Ai let go of one of his hands and placed his palm on the side of Rin’s neck, no doubt feeling how his pulse was trying to outrun a jackrabbit. It was just a gentle press of lips against lips at first. Ai on his toes, and Rin hunched over to meet him. Warm fingers brushed against the nape of his neck and found their way into his hair, and Rin’s brain finally caught up when Ai parted his lips and kissed him in earnest. A completely involuntary sigh came out of Rin’s mouth, and he could _ feel  _ Ai’s smile before he heard him giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Rin grumbled against his mouth, voice surprisingly steady in comparison to how mushy he felt.

“I don’t know,” Ai said, pulling his hand out of Rin’s hair. Rin immediately missed it, but Ai compensated by resting his head against his shoulder, and Rin decided this was much better. 

“I’m just happy, I think,” Ai sighed, the puff of breath rolling over Rin’s collarbone. It sent a pleasant shiver up his spine, and he smiled into Ai’s hair. He could have stayed like this for hours, probably. Confessing in a locker room that smelled like chlorine and too much spray deodorant was possibly the least romantic thing on the planet, but Rin found that right now, he didn’t mind at all. This was perfect just the way it was.

Almost perfect.

A series of loud raps suddenly sounded from the door, causing Rin to jump and Ai to groan.

“Are you guys done with your adult talk yet?” Momo yelled from the other side. Ai reluctantly lifted his head and turned towards the door with a sigh, tugging Rin along by the hand.

“Yeah, yeah, just please stop hammering!” Ai called back as he reached for the lock.

“Hold on,” Rin sputtered, planting his heels firmly on the ground. “You’re just gonna tell him? Right now?”

Ai stopped turning the lock and shrugged, the tips of his ears turning bright pink. “If you wanna keep it secret, I won’t– but Momo-kun kind of thinks we’re dating already.”

There were a lot of questions Rin could ask about that particular statement. Like  _ how, why  _ and _ since when? _ But instead of asking any of those perfectly valid questions, what fell out of his mouth was just:

“Are we?”

Ai blinked and thought about it for a moment. “Do you want to?”

“What the fu– yes? was that not obvious?” Rin tightened his grip on Ai’s hand to underline his point.

“Just making sure,” Ai smiled and unlocked the door.

And just like he’d said, Momo didn’t even bat an eyelid at their intertwined fingers.


End file.
